All the Pretty Girls

by Riley Edwards

  “Where is the woman now?”

  “She’s yelling at me. I tried to cover my ears, but I can’t get my arms to work. My head is pounding. She won’t stop screaming at me. Over and over. My head is going to explode. It hurts.”

  “Focus on her words.”

  “She’s really mad. So mad. I don’t want her yelling at me.”

  “Focus on only the words. Not the pain or anger. What is she saying?”

  “She called me a bitch and a thief and pushed me on the ground. I landed on my hands and knees but couldn’t hold myself up. I rolled onto my back, and she was standing over me.”

  “Tell me what she’s saying.”

  “I don’t know. Her lips are moving, but she is fuzzy. I can see her but I can’t. I know she’s talking.”

  “Okay, skip it. Relax into the moment. What are you doing?”

  “I’m begging. Please don’t do this. She kneeled beside me and said, you think because you’re so pretty you can have whatever you want. Take and take. Steal what doesn’t belong to you.”

  “Good. What do you see?”

  “She has a big kitchen knife. She raised it back to her shoulder. I told her I didn’t steal anything. I begged her not to hurt me.”

  “What hand was holding the knife?”

  “Right hand.”

  “Look at her hand. Focus on her fingers and tell me exactly what you see.”

  “I don’t know. It’s too hazy, and I can’t see clearly.”

  “Does she have light skin or dark skin?”

  “Light.”

  “Good. What happens next?”

  “Pain. Pain everywhere. I feel every inch the knife is pushed into my stomach. Everything hurts. It’s too much. I want it to stop. I can’t make it stop. I’m hot, and I can’t breathe.”

  “Skip it, Meadow. There is no more pain. What is she saying to you?”

  “You shouldn’t take what isn’t yours, you dirty bitch.”

  “Then what do you see?”

  “Nothing. My head is pounding, and I can’t see anything. I can hear her breathing heavy. I can’t see her. She’s right there. Right in my face. She is right there!”

  “Meadow! That’s enough. Open your eyes and look at me.”

  “She’s there, right there looking at me. I can feel her. Why can’t I see her? The image is so close; I want to see her.”

  “That. Is. Enough.” Mandy clapped her hands in front of my face, and I opened my eyes.

  Unlike what I’d seen in movies when someone is hypnotized, and they wake up not knowing what’d happened – I could remember everything I’d told Mandy.

  “Take a breath and relax. Let the image go.”

  “I can almost see it, Mandy.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You did great. Give your mind a rest. The harder you try to force yourself to see it, the fuzzier it will become. Leave it.”

  She was right. The more I tried, the less I could see.

  “A woman attacked me.” I had never taken into consideration it had been a woman who had hurt me. All these years I’d assumed it was a man, refusing to remember anything but a few sentences from that night. “When I dream about what happened in the alley, I hear her yelling at me. But the voice is never the same. Sometimes it’s high-pitched and shrill, and other times it’s almost robotic. Same words, different voices.”

  “Is the voice always a woman’s voice?”

  “No. Male and female both. I always thought it was a man.”

  “The mind is programmed to process information in the way we perceive it. That’s why I wanted to try to hypnotize you. All that happened was we removed the expectation and your mind was free to remember.”

  Holy shit. All these years I’d thought a man had tried to kill me. I wasn’t sure how to feel about the new revelation. A woman!

  Chapter 11

  Red

  That easily had to have been the worst hour of my life. Hearing a victim relive an attack is always hard, but Meadow? It took every ounce of self-control I had not to barge into the conference room and scoop her up into my arms and hold her. I hated she was having to remember. I couldn’t bear to hear her pain as she relived the attack.

  “Damn, that was rough,” Ben said. He’d gotten to the office in time to watch Mandy’s session with Meadow.

  “Seems Nick was correct. We’re dealing with a female offender. I’ll admit, I had my doubts but damn if he wasn’t right.” Joel looked up from his tablet. “I forwarded the session to Kilby. He’ll be back in an hour. He wants to sit down to revise the profile. Officer Lance is coming in with him.”

  One step closer. Meadow’s pain wasn’t in vain. We were one step closer. Hopefully, the police could make an arrest before the twentieth.

  “How is she?” I asked Mandy when she joined us.

  “She’s… okay. She actually would like to talk to you before she leaves.”

  I didn’t bother answering Mandy. I hadn’t realized how tense I had been until she told me that Meadow wanted to see me. I didn’t know why, but the thought of Meadow leaving without saying goodbye sat in my gut like a rock.

  Meadow sat slumped forward in the chair, scratching Sally’s ears. Seeing her with Sally made me want to talk to Alexandra about getting a dog for Meadow. Homefront usually only paired comfort animals with vets, but if anyone ever needed one of their dogs, it was Meadow.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi. Thanks for letting me borrow Sally. She’s a really good dog, you’ve done a great job with her.”

  “Thanks. I’m gonna be sad when she has to go. But then, I always am. I’m glad she helped.”

  “Did…umm… you watch too?”

  “I did. Mandy explained that the session was going to be recorded, right?” Meadow’s face drained of all color, and she immediately looked away from me. “Hey. Don’t do that. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You did great. I know how difficult that was for you. How are you feeling?”

  “Foolish. I can’t believe I blocked out a woman had attacked me. Did you know?”

  “No. Only recently, when the case reopened, did we consider the unsub could be a woman. However, it wasn’t until you confirmed it that we knew for sure.”

  “How did you figure out I was the first… you know,” she asked.

  “I ran a search for women who had similar wounds to the victims, crossing that with assaults that took place on the seventh.”

  “Why didn’t she kill me?”

  Meadow’s tears were my undoing. I couldn’t stand to see them fall down her pretty cheeks.

  “Sally, up.” When Sally stood I knelt in front of Meadow, grabbing her hands in mine I squeezed until she lifted her eyes to mine. “She was interrupted by one of the bar staff.”

  “Some days I wish…”

  “Don’t say it,” I interrupted. “Don’t even think it. We’re gonna catch her, Red, and she’s gonna pay for what she did to you.”

  “I better get to work. I only took half a day off.”

  Work? Was she crazy? She needed to go home and relax.

  “Any way you can take the rest of the day?” I asked.

  “No. I’m hourly. If I want to continue to buy five-dollar coffees and pay my rent I need the hours.”

  That was going to change. In the very near future, she wouldn’t have to worry about her five-dollar coffees; I’d be buying them for her.

  “What time are you done with work?” I asked.

  “Five.”

  “Perfect. How about I pick you up at five-thirty and we go grab some dinner?”

  If her cheeks had not been stained with tears, I might’ve laughed at how wide her green eyes got before she squinted and shook her head.

  “What? Why?”

  “I could tell you that I want to take you to dinner because I want to make sure you are okay. But that’d mostly be a lie.”

  “So, you don’t care if I’m okay?” Her lip twitched, and I was relieved.

  “I’m quite sure you’ll be more th
an okay after dinner.”

  “What makes you think I want to have dinner with you?” Fuck. I overplayed my hand. “I’m kidding.” And for the first time since I’d met her, Meadow Holiday graced me with a smile. A real one that hit her eyes and made the green shine.

  Goddamn, she was beautiful.

  “All joking aside. I’m fine. You don’t have to waste your night having dinner with me.”

  “Red, not a moment would be wasted; I get to spend time with you.”

  I hoped the poor girl didn’t play poker; she couldn’t hide a single expression.

  “Okay. Dinner would be nice.”

  ***

  By the time Officer Lance and Kilby made their way to the office, it was a quarter to four. Meadow lived at least thirty minutes away, and I still had to take Sally home before I picked her up. Of all fucking days to be running late.

  The men watched Mandy’s session with Meadow, and I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Watching the first time had been bad enough, but the second time was torture.

  “Dr. Brown, can you walk me through your interview?” Officer Lance asked. The skepticism was hard to miss.

  “I see you’re not a believer.” Mandy smiled at the man. “As you saw on the recording, I explained to Meadow hypnosis is a psychological state of focused relaxation - an altered state of awareness where your mental process works differently. It’s called top-down processing. The brain processes top-level information first – memories and expectations. Those memories have a big impact on the bottom – and how your brain senses or perceives those expectations. When Meadow relaxed and focused on the details of her attack while she was in an altered state, she was able to remember what she saw, felt, and heard, not what she thought she was supposed to see.

  “Top-down processing explains the placebo effect. A doctor gives a patient a pill, real or fake, and tells him he’ll feel great after he takes it. He feels better. His brain expects it. He has an involuntary reaction to the pill,” Mandy finished.

  “Hypnosis opens your mind to suggestion,” Officer Lance countered.

  “Of course, it can. But as you saw, I didn’t offer suggestions.”

  “I’m not sure I’m sold on the woman serial killer. Women don’t kill with such extreme aggression.”

  “They don’t, or they can’t?” I asked.

  “What do you mean, SA Clark?”

  “You said they don’t kill with such extreme aggression. That’s not true. Women kill with the same brutality as a man. However, they typically don’t become serial, but that doesn’t mean they can’t.”

  “What makes this woman different? If we had fourteen dead men on our hands, I might be apt to believe a woman was the offender,” the officer continued.

  “When a woman is wronged, say her husband or boyfriend cheats on her, she blames the woman. It’s the woman’s fault her man stepped out of the relationship. What does she have that I don’t? Why her? Women obsess; they fixate on what they think are their own inadequacies. It consumes them and eats at their self-worth until they turn vengeful and indignant. The offender cannot kill the object of her obsession, so she kills substitutes, beautiful women that remind her of all the things she is not. She defaces her victims, taking their beauty and turning it into something unattractive and grotesque,” Mandy explained.

  “Why the stab to the stomach?” Officer Lance’s tone had turned slightly less argumentative. “The overkill to the face is enough to kill them.

  “Symbolic. The trauma is always to the lower abdomen, pelvic region,” Ben answered.

  “Goddamn. That’s one pissed off woman,” the officer agreed. “Why the change in dates?”

  “Trauma. The first trigger happened on the seventh. Four years later a second trigger happened on the twentieth,” Joel told him.

  “It’s no secret I don’t put a lot of stock into profiling. It’s a crapshoot. But we can use all the help we can get, so I’d appreciate a new report I can present to my guys. We already have more patrols set for the twentieth, but I can’t cover every bar in the city. My tech specialist has tried to recover the last crime scene’s security hard drive with no luck. I’ve asked SSA Kilby to let your girl take a crack at it. I hope we catch this bitch before I have another dead woman with her face mutilated.”

  “We’ll have something for you in the morning, and Kristy is already working on the hard drive.” Kilby stood, signaling the meet was over. The rest of us followed suit and waited for Kilby to escort the officer to the lobby.

  “Has he always been a dick?” Mike asked.

  “He’s not a dick,” Mandy started. “I’ve known Officer Lance a long time. He’s an old school, by the book type of guy. If you cannot see it or touch it, it’s not real. But he’s a good homicide detective. Believe me, he wants to catch this guy…umm… woman just as bad as we do.”

  I checked my watched and saw I wouldn’t have time to drop off Sally or change before I had to be at Meadow’s.

  “I’m done for the day. See you all tomorrow.”

  I turned to call for Sally, who was patiently waiting for me at my desk when I heard the laughter.

  “Damn, hot date?” That was from Ben.

  “I’ve never seen him try to run out of here so fast,” Mandy added.

  “Go get ‘em, tiger,” Mike said, causing the rest of the group to roar with amusement.

  “Careful Mike. Your age is showing. No one says that anymore.” I didn’t bother turning around when I flipped the group off over my shoulder. They could laugh all they wanted. I had a date with pretty Miss Holiday. They could all suck it.

  Chapter 12

  A date

  Of all days…

  Something had crawled so far up Beth’s ass, not only had it died, but it was decaying. From the moment I’d walked into the office after my session with Mandy, she’d been on my case. Her sales numbers had dropped this week, and two clients canceled their accounts after she’d missed a meeting with them. She blamed me, even though I didn’t keep her schedule. Bitch. I’d heard her in her office yelling at someone on the phone; and I hoped to God it wasn’t a client. If it was, I understood why people were canceling their orders and their memberships to our cloud storage service.

  Beth had never been especially nice to me, but after my attack, she’d been even bitchier. And today had been no different. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but every time she made a comment, it was like a slap in the face. I’d heard it all, from how sorry she was I was now ugly, to what a shame it was I’d never have children. The woman was down-right mean.

  I held my breath when five o’clock rolled around, and she’d stopped out of her office, prepared for the verbal vomit that would spew from her mouth. But when she’d placed her reports on my desk to file she didn’t say a word. In fact, she looked like she’d been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy and her normally perfect makeup was smudged. If she were anyone else, I would’ve asked if she was okay. But she wasn’t, and I didn’t. I watched in shock as she made her way to the door, with her purse hanging from the crook of her elbow and her coat draped over her arm, and silently left. No snarky comment about how lonely it must be going home to an empty house. No boasting about how perfect her boyfriend was. No bragging about how he’d been hinting at marriage. It was crazy a man would actually want to marry her. Today she was silent. I should’ve been grateful, but instead, I kind of felt sorry for her. When I thought about it, she hadn’t mentioned the boyfriend in a few months.

  Trouble in paradise?

  I had barely enough time to get home and change before Nick came over. I rushed through closing down my computer and grabbed my bag from under my desk and headed out. Now that I didn’t have Beth or work to occupy my mind, I was getting nervous. More than nervous, my palms were sweating the whole drive home, and by the time I pulled into my parking spot, I’d considered canceling.

  Why was I doing this? It was a waste of time; nothing could or would come of having dinner with Nick. He was handsom
e, smart, and had a good job. I was sure like most men, he’d want a family. Maybe he wanted to have some fun before he settled down and found a wife. My heart sank at the thought of being filler. That’s all I could ever be, the filler, the space between when a man was playing the field and ready to settle down.

  Before I got out of my car, I grabbed my phone and sent a message to Veronica Venus.

  Me: Am I crazy for going on a date?

  VV21: Meadow? Is this you? Have you been abducted by aliens? A date?

  I couldn’t help but laugh at her response. I haven’t been on a date in years. Hell, I barely leave the house. I’m a twenty-six-year-old cat woman, minus the cats.

  Me: Yes. With an FBI agent. He’s super-hot! ?? ??

  VV21: FBI?

  Me: Sigh. Long story. I’ll fill you in tomorrow. He’ll be here soon; I have to get ready.

  VV21: Have fun. Be safe. And I want details tomorrow. Wait, the FBI guy from the other day?

  Me: Yes.

  VV21: Sweetie. Are you sure it’s a date and he just doesn’t want more information from you?

  Ouch! As much as what she said stung, maybe she was right. Was I making too much of this? Nick asked if I wanted to grab dinner. He didn’t call it a date. He didn’t even ask, really. Just I’ll come by, and we’ll have dinner. Shit. I’d misread the situation.

  VV21: I’m not being mean. I don’t want to see you get hurt. Don’t let him use you.

  Use me? Nick wouldn’t use me, would he? I didn’t know him that well, but he didn’t seem like the type of man that would be dishonest or underhanded.

  Me: No. You’re right. He didn’t call it date. He said “dinner.” I called it a date. I’m sure he’s being nice checking on me since I was hypnotized today and remembered some awful stuff.

  How could I’ve been so stupid thinking that Nick wanted to go on a date with me? He felt sorry for me, that was all. He was a nice guy, and nice guys go out of their way to help broken women like me.

  VV21: YOU REMEMBERED?!

  Me: Not everything. I’ll message you later and tell you about it. I’m sure I’ll be home early from my non-date dinner. How lame am I thought he asked me on a date?! BBL. xo